Shanghai Day One: A Little Surprise

Friday morning our kiddos woke up early and we decided to pull out the credit card for a little surprise visit to Shanghai Disneyland.  It is so much cheaper here and we knew how much they were wanting to go!!!  We didn't tell them where we were going and even as they posed with the character pictures on the Disney-themed subway car they still didn't figure it out. ;)

We arrived right around opening time and headed in to spend a fun day and one of our last days as a family of five. :)  They were crazy excited that we were taking them to it.  Kate kept telling me, "But Mom, you said we couldn't go there."  So sweet!!

They loved finding Uncle Scrooge's vault!! 

And the castle is AMAZING!!  Our family is a Disney family.  In fact, this was the last park I needed to visit to have been to them all... Usually Disneyland parks have a small castle.  This one is huge and gorgeous.  Probably bigger than the one at Magic Kingdom.

And that was just the beginning of the differences...

Oh.my.goodness!!!  Pirates of the Carribean blew us away!!! It was AMAZING.  THE BEST RIDE WE'VE EVER GONE ON.  It really set the bar very high for rides.  So many cool things that were unexpected and amazing.  It was Disney Magic.

Every Pirate Princess needs to have an "I mean business" face, right?

This boy... we were honestly both excited and terrified at the thought of taking him back to China.  He has a lot of hurts.  A lot of emotional baggage.  We kept questioning.. Is it the right time?  Will he be able to handle it?  He did great this first day.  We don't know if it is because Disney is familiar to him or because he's going to do well here, but we'll take it either way!!!

They have this cool "iron man experience" where you can fight there in position as Iron Man.  He was all about it!!!

Laila couldn't ride most of what was there other than Fantasyland, which was a madhouse, but she still had fun!!!  Ticket prices go by height, so it was free for her to get in to Disney anyway.  Wish they'd use that system in the US for tickets!!!

We only got to do a fraction of all they have at Shanghai Disneyland.  It's much larger than Hong Kong Disneyland was.  We all left hoping that one day we can bring the whole, complete family of seven back to China to do this park together.

But as Laila said, starting around 6pm... we were tired and got out of there before closing time.

We tried out a noodle restaurant in the mall across the street from our hotel.  The food was great but everyone was SO TIRED>  Jet lag is a beast!!

Chengbin fell asleep right there in that position at least 3 times while waiting on the food to arrive.

And when it was time to go Laila begged to be carried and put to bed.  She was a trooper all day so we just went with it. :)

What a great day!!  We are so amazed how well the kids are doing!! And only a few days to go until Lily Day!!  I can't wait to see her again!!!

Day One: Adventures in Hong Kong!

Man oh man, did we have an interesting day!!

We decided to start it off with a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland!  Tickets to it are way cheaper than tickets in the US, so off we went!

 

We were shocked how quiet the park was, since last time we visited it was smack dab in the middle of summer and the place was a madhouse!  The off season crowd was pretty small!  Great news for us!

 

Less than 5 minutes wait for Space Mountain, so we rode it twice!!  It's a great version of it too, complete with music. :)

 

 

And Oh Man!!!  This is gonna be awesome!! Wonder if they'll be building one in the US Parks??

And NO Disney trip is complete without a boat ride through It's A Small World!!  And yes, when you have an adopted child from across the world and you are on the way to another one, the words of this song take on significant meaning. :)

These pictures are for Kate & Chengbin- Daddy & I were missing you guys so much seeing the Three Cabelleros and Aladdin, Jasmine, & Abu!!

 

Instead of a Haunted Mansion, Disneyland Hong Kong has Mystic Manor.  Where this cute little monkey opens the box & releases the Magic inside.  It is SO cool!!

And after riding Grizzly Gulch two times in a row & having some lunch, we decided to watch the parade and head out of the park for a little exploration of Hong Kong!

The floats at this parade were outstanding!  Seriously, I'm not a Disney parade person, but both times we've went the Hong Kong Disneyland parades were great!

And the last float of the parade had me almost teary missing the kids!!! Stitch is their favorite.  Kate has been in love with Lilo & Stitch for years, and while I had stocked up on Lilo, Stitch, & Scrump souveniers for them, I SOOOOO wish they could have seen this float.  Pictures do NOT do it justice!  It was amazing!

After the last float we headed off to grab a taxi back to the hotel.  We decided to drop off our souvenirs, do a little research on where the Bruce Lee statue is, and head out on an adventure into Hong Kong...

But first I tripped on the curb, sent my bag flying, & opened it to find a punctured iphone inside.  Seriously, the bottom left hand side of the screen is punctured all the way through leaving me with a dead spot on the bottom of my screen.  My phone is no longer a phone, since I can't actually hit the phone button to make a call... Good thing I put the international plan on my phone!! (sigh)

So we dropped off stuff at the hotel, broke my phone, and then headed out for our next adventure of the day...

Another blog post to follow!

Thanks for stopping by!
Fannie & Matt

And we're off!!

Well, we are on the first leg of our flights- flying to Houston before we take that long, long flight across the world to Tokyo!  We will have 5 1/2 hrs to explore Narita before our final flight to Hong Kong.

We are missing Katie & Chengbin like crazy already!  We left both of our teary eyed kiddos this morning and we ask for you all to pray for them today.  They are adjusting to their temporary normal & I know it will be hard on them the first couple days.  We are so thankful that Grandpa is with them and we know he'll take good care of them til we get back!!

Our schedule for this week of our China trip looks like this:

Friday- arrive in HK

Sat- touring HK

Sun- tour HK in AM, PM flight to Guangxi Province

Mon- 'Gotcha' day.  This is the day we will get custody of Laila.

Tues- Adoption Day.  We will fully complete her adoption this day.

Wed- paperwork & touring

Thurs- orphanage visit

Fri- pick up passport for Laila & fly to GZ

We will be staying in GZ for 12 days because of a National holiday that will close everything down for a week while we are in the middle of the process of obtaining a visa for our girl.

We are so excited to get our little one!!  The kids are anxiously awaiting a skype session w little sissy!! :)

And I will post a whole story about this later, because God deserves all the credit and I want to share the story of the great things he has done, but we are Fully Funded!!!  

Pray for our safe travel, for our kids & Grandpa, & for that sweet little one across the world!

We're coming Laila!!

Sincerely,

Matt & Fannie 

Travel Approved!!

Yesterday China approved our travel and our agency was able to book our appointment at the US Consulate.  That means- We're going to China!!! :)

That's right!  Everything is approved and we leave on Sept 18th to go get our sweet girl!!

Due to the Chinese National Holiday we will have to stay in country three weeks instead of two.  Not sure who this will be harder on... Our kids back home, us, Laila, or poor, brave Grandpa who volunteered to take care of them for three whole weeks on his own! Haha!!

More details to follow!

Please pray for Laila.  She will be going much longer than recommended between transfusions, so pray for her health as we prepare to go get her. 

Please pray for God to provide the remaining money needed to get her home.  After over 5 months, our tax return has still not been processed and we had expected to have this money for final travel expenses.  We know our God is able and he will see us through to the end!

Please pray for our kids.  They won't be traveling with us and this will undoubtedly be very hard for them.  Pray for them to have so much fun with Grandpa that they don't even miss us!! ;)

Wahoo!!! I think Kailan said it best, "We're going to China, we're going to China, I feel so happy I just wanna sing..."

Thanks for your support and prayers!
Fannie, Matt, & the crazy Wilks kiddos